The Jew and His History

174 Pages·1977·19.344 MB·English

by  Lionel Kochan (auth.)

THE JEW AND HIS HISTORY
By the same author
THE STRUGGLE FOR GERMANY 1914-1945
RUSSIA AND THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC
MAKING OF MODERN RUSSIA
RUSSIA IN REVOLUTION 1890-1918
ACTON ON HISTORY
POGROM: NOVEMBER 10, 1938
THE JEWS IN SOVIET RUSSIA SINCE 1917 (editor)
THE JEW
AND HIS HISTORY
Lionel Kochan
Bearsted Reader in Jewish History
University of Warwick
M
© Lionel Kochan 1977
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1977
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First published 1977 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in New York
Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras
ISBN 978-1-349-02832-0 ISBN 978-1-349-02830-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-02830-6
This book is sold subject
to the standard conditions
of the Net Book Agreement
To Miriam:
Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be.
Robert Browning,
Rabbi Ben Ezra
To enlighten the Jewish nation we must begin neither with history
nor with natural theology and morals. One of my reasons for think
ing so is that these subjects, being easily intelligible, would not
instil any regard for science into the more learned Jews, who are
accustomed to respect only those studies which involve a strain
upon the highest intellectual powers.
Solomon Maimon, Autobiography
In general we utterly neglect historical research.
Kafka, Josephine the singer, or the mouse-people
Contents
Preface IX
1 The Problem 1
2 The Affirmation of History 7
3 Before the Sixteenth Century 19
4 The Beginning of Modernity 35
5 The Decline of the Messiah 59
6 The Messiah as the Spirit of History : Krochmal and
Graetz 69
7 The Apotheosis of History : Dubnow 88
8 History Denied : Rosenzweig 99
9 Conclusion 115
Notes 119
Select Bibliography 147
Index 159
Preface
This book began life as an attempt to examine the course of Jewish
historiography in the Diaspora. But the more that subject matter
came to be known, the more it dwindled. The original enquiry
then set itself the further question : why did the historical dog not
bark more loudly? When it did, what special factors governed its
expression ?
The answer proffered here draws on the works of historians as
well as others who have not written a line of history and would be
astonished, and perhaps also repelled, to find themselves described
as historians. But this is inherent in the subject, for those 'others'
have yet propounded distinctive notions of Israel's past and future.
'History is important to such a degree', it has been said, 'that even
values beyond space and time are not alienated from it but relate
to it in a positive manner'.1 Not only does messianic thinking and
exposition associate itself with particular historical events but its
point of reference is also historical in that it encompasses the
political and physical destiny of Israel. 2
This must necessarily be so. The idea of the messiah is here
understood as that concept which encompasses all those other con
cepts - the election of Israel, the covenant with God, the Torah -
which have history as their 'all-pervading dominant sanction'. 8 For
this reason Jewish historiography cannot exist as an historical dis
cipline or enquiry independent of Judaism, however understood; it
can only seek to express the changing manner in which the
messianic theme has been understood. But this definition is in itself
already so wide that every mystic, for example, who has reflected
on the fact and meaning of exile should be regarded as an his
torian. It is natural that a study entitled 'Different Approaches
to the History of Israel'4 should consider the mystical teaching of
R. Isaac Luria, with its doctrine of the restoration of all things
x Preface
to their primal source in God, side by side with the sociological
doctrines of Dubnow. Faced with this profusion of matter, and
its indeterminacy, I have arbitrarily tended to limit myself to
those historians who favoured an empirical approach.
This has inevitably posed problems of selection, and means
that this book can make not the slightest claim to comprehensive
ness. Given this limitation, however, I would like to think that the
essay will expound an understanding of history drawn from the
thinking of exilic Judaism.
To my dear friend Steven Schwarzschild I owe a debt of gratitude
which I hope this essay may in part redeem. His stimulating con
versation and correspondence greatly helped me in the clarification
of my ideas.
To the Overseas Research Fund of the University of Warwick,
which helped to make it possible for me to consult colleagues and
libraries in Israel, I am also deeply grateful.
University of Warwick LIONEL KocHAN